Lord Infamous plays it morbid between rhymes

With his acumen for fiendish plots and suspenseful sounds, Memphis rapper Lord Infamous is like Bela Lugosi, Alfred Hitchcock, and Stephen King all rolled up into one.

An upcoming album, After Sics, which will be released on his own Black Rain Entertainment label on Tuesday, continues the horror tradition that Infamous (real name: Ricky Dunigan) first wrought with Three 6 Mafia, Memphis' most successful rap act.

Lord Infamous laces his lyrics and sound to the horror movies he grew up watching before his days working with Three 6 Mafia and later making his own name in rap.

Infamous, now 35, says that his fascination with the horror genre dates back to when he and his half-brother, Three 6 co-founder "DJ" Paul Beauregard, were just kids.

"Back in the 'hood on Chadwick Circle, me and Paul used to watch a lot of HBO and Cinemax," Infamous recalls. "A lot of 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' and 'Candyman.' Jason (the anti-hero from the "Friday the 13th" franchise) was king, then Michael (Myers, the "Halloween" antagonist), then Pinhead (from "Hellraiser"), then ("A Nightmare on Elm Street" villain Freddy) Krueger."

Inspired by such ghoulish characters, Infamous deftly wove morbid lyrics and macabre keyboard riffs over a hypnotic backbeat that, with the release of 1994's Smoked Out, Loced Out, put Three 6 Mafia on the map.

"That's my sound, a dark, gangsta down-South theme," he says of the style he invented, which, a decade-and-a-half later, permeates the spirit of After Sics via songs like "Ball Off" and "All I Need."

Even the album's title is a play on words, Infamous says.

"It's about things that happen after 6 at night, and about my life beyond Three 6 Mafia," he says.

While Infamous is indubitably the star of the album, along with his Black Rain Entertainment partner II Tone, he shares marquee space with up-and-coming members of Tha Clubhouse Click, including Atlanta rapper T-Rock, Denver-based group Tha Crunkaholics, and local MCs Mac Montese, Big Stang, and Area 51.

"Back in the Three 6 days, Infamous did a song called 'Triple 6 Clubhouse', and since this is really a compilation album, we called it 'Tha Clubhouse Click'," says II Tone (a.k.a. 30-year-old Mario Reddick).

Sequencing the more street-influenced raps, such as "Uuugghh" and "I'm Out," with Infamous' dark-minded material was no problem, II Tone says.

"We don't want to sound alike. Everybody on the album compliments each other, even though (Infamous) has the bigger name."

Enigma, the South Memphis producer who tracked most of After Sics at his studio, the Lion's Den, compares the contrasting styles of Lord Infamous and II Tone to the wildly popular -- and equally divergent -- sounds of OutKast's Big Boi and Andre Benjamin.

"They all bring something different to the table," says Enigma (real name: Richard Hervey). "You can't get tired of listening to a project like that, because there's always something different."

Working with Infamous and Tha Clubhouse Click fulfilled a long-term dream for the 32-year-old producer, who built his reputation by manning the control board for rap and hip-hop stars such as 8Ball & MJG, Jazze Pha, Bun B, and Pastor Troy.

"One word that can describe Lord Infamous is mystical," Enigma says. "You don't know how he's gonna come or what he's gonna say, but he has a style that's all his own. I used to listen to him when I was in junior high, so I never, ever thought he'd be in my studio working on a new project."

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